IMMIGRATION: Group wants ICE agents in sheriff's stations

A coalition of local conservative groups say they want the Sheriff's Department to bring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents back to several North County stations to patrol the streets with deputies, but Sheriff Bill Gore says that kind of partnership never existed.

Last week, the Patriot Coalition of San Diego County called on the Sheriff's Department to resume the partnership, which they said existed for about a year before Gore put an end to it in March after Latino activists asked him to stop it.

Two members of the coalition, which includes about 30 tea party organizations in the county, said the partnership worked much like
Operation Joint Effort
in Escondido, where about a dozen ICE agents work with police officers to arrest criminal illegal immigrants.

"About eight ICE agents were assigned to the Vista, San Marcos and Fallbrook substations for approximately one year to work with the Joint Effort program that Escondido has been using successfully for nearly 2 1/2 years that has deported 940 criminal aliens from that city," said Cliff Sumrall, chairman of the coalition. "The program in Vista and San Marcos was equally successful and resulted in the deportation of 306 criminal aliens by the ICE agents responding to calls from patrol deputies to come out and check suspected criminal aliens' status."

Sumrall said he spoke with ICE agents directly involved in the program, including a supervisor, last week.

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for ICE, said Tuesday that there was no partnership between the agency and the Sheriff's Department.

There are agents who work with the department on task forces, but "those groups are focused on identifying and arresting serious criminal violators, including documented gang members and drug traffickers," Kice said.

Gore said he met with members of the Patriot Coalition earlier this month and told them that the partnership between his department and ICE did not exist and never will under his leadership. There were ICE agents working in those stations as part of task forces but they did not routinely answer calls from patrol deputies, Gore said.

"I told this to the coalition," Gore said. "We've never had an MOU (memorandum of understanding with ICE) or a Joint Effort."

Gore said that having ICE agents working directly with deputies on routine investigations or traffic stops would discourage illegal immigrants from reporting crimes or cooperating with investigators.

The North County Times
reported
last September that an immigration agent assigned to the North County Regional Gang Task Force was working part-time in the Fallbrook Sheriff's Substation to help identify criminals.

Other ICE agents assigned to the Regional Gang Task Force also worked in the Vista and San Marcos stations but they did not routinely answer calls from patrol officers, Sheriff's Department officials told the North County Times at the time.

Gore said in a phone interview Friday that he received a letter in late February from retired Assistant Sheriff Bill Flores, a member of the immigrant rights group El Grupo, asking if the Sheriff's Department was participating in an Escondido-like program in North County stations.

After receiving the letter, Gore said he asked if there were agents using office space at the stations.

Gore said several ICE agents were using desks in the stations but only because they worked on the task forces, and he asked them to leave.

"We didn't want a permanent presence there," Gore said.

The sheriff said the department maintains a fine line between working with ICE and other federal agencies without creating the perception that deputies enforce immigration law. The department houses
ICE agents in its jails
to help find illegal immigrant inmates and works with immigration agents to fight
crime along the border
, Gore said.

There may have been times when deputies called on ICE agents on routine matters but that was not as a matter of policy, Gore said.

"I'm not saying it never happened," Gore said. He added that "there might be times when they do call ICE or Border Patrol but not on traffic stops."

About four years ago, ICE approached the Sheriff's Department and other law enforcement agencies about participating in partnerships, Gore said. His department declined, saying a partnership could alienate county's vast immigrant community, Gore said.

"We said we think we have the appropriate relationship (with ICE) now," Gore said.

Flores, who has criticized the Escondido Police Department over its partnership with ICE, said local law enforcement agencies must consider the damage partnerships with immigration authorities might have on the communities they swore to protect.

"Having good relations with state and federal agencies enhances the overall effectiveness of fighting crime, I get that," Flores said. "On the other hand, at this time in our nation's history when immigration has become such a political hot potato, law enforcement leaders should be very careful with these types of arrangements with ICE officers."

Sumrall said the coalition wants Gore to reinstate the program for the "public's safety."

"The public trusts the ICE agents to target criminal aliens who otherwise would not be subject to arrest by local law enforcement," Sumrall said.

Correction:
A previous version of this story misidentified the Patriot Coalition as "anti-illegal immigration activists." We apologize.